Behind door No. 4

The island guard went house to house rousting drunken vacationers from their debauchery-induced stupor. Curses met any demands to search the property, which were answered with force, as the guard tossed shocked suspects through the tropical hued doors of their bungalows.

The revelers gathered at the water’s edge as they watched the guard storm their cluster of tiny beach cottages. The captain strode over to the crowd, impatience and annoyance in every step.

“It will do none of you any good to harbor the fugitive,” he said, snarling through clenched teeth. “We will find him, and to those who offered him aid… your punishment will be swift and severe.”

Without answering any of the questions being flung at him, the captain returned to the manhunt.

The rising sun was burning off the Bacchus fog, leaving the displaced partiers clamoring over their ill-treatment.

One guest stood apart from the others, nervously chewing on the cuticle of a helpless thumbnail.

She watched as the guard entered the fourth bungalow on Cypress Cove, flinching with every crash and thud that came through the hurricane-shuttered windows.

Uniformed men flooded out of the blue door, guns strapped to their backs, but empty-handed. They conversed loudly with their captain in their island dialect, pointing toward the nearby marina. Their leader whistled shrilly through his fingers, then made a swirling motion over his head with one hand.

Falling into formation, the guard began a short, military jog away from the bungalows and the scared tourists.

The captain walked over to the crowd again. Slowly donning his mirrored aviator glasses, he took a deep breath.

“We know one of you sheltered a dangerous felon, we will find him,” he said, avoiding looking at them. “When we apprehend him, we will return to arrest his accomplice.”

The reflective lens of his glasses gave him an insect-like visage, and an involuntary shudder ran through the crowd. The lone woman, was not looking at the captain, she was focused over his head.

She used the subterfuge of her nail-biting habit to cover the smile that threatened to give her away. Clinging to the corrugated metal roof, was the subject of the guard’s search. Her fugitive paramour blew her a kiss before climbing over the railing of the bungalow’s widow’s walk.

He would be safe there until the guard moved their search to another part of the island.

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